Commercialization: July 2005 Archives

"Space Adventures announced today that American technology entrepreneur Gregory Olsen, Ph.D. has been confirmed to the Soyuz TMA-7 crew which is currently planned for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on October 1 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan."

Editor's note: With the grounding of the Shuttle fleet it will be interesting to see if this third seat will be used for a sightseer or someone who will actually work aboard the ISS.

"NASA Stennis Space Center Acquisition Management Office is hosting an Industry Day and Small Business Expo on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 at Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis, MS. The purpose of this conference is to provide industry, particularly small businesses, with an opportunity to network and learn about Stennis Space Center, NASA Programs, and to meet with Government and Industry personnel who can assist them in their endeavors to obtain business opportunities at the facility."

"Casino Magic Bay St. Louis offers the Mississippi Gulf Coast's only casino resort with all amenities right on site including 24-hour gaming with the latest in video and reel slots and exciting tables games, plus two hotels, world-class golf, a spa, RV park, meeting space, entertainment nightly and legendary Pete Fountain, plays every Tuesday and Wednesday."

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"Under this acquisition process, NASA has used a phased approach utilizing full and open competition to select two companies, Lockheed Martin Corporation and Northrop-Grumman/Boeing, for phase I contracts for concept development. Phase II will begin after a competitive down select of the phase I effort. Again the purpose of this sources sought is to identify potential sources for small business subcontracting opportunities during phase II performance."

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"This is a notice of our intent to award a contract on a noncompetitve basis to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) for the following services." ... "b) Systems Engineering and Analysis - Systems engineering activities essential to defining problems and requirements, assessing or devising technical approaches and concepts, and developing baselines (e.g., models, architectures, specifications) useful for continued development and/or integration. This includes performing bench marking and evaluation activities such as critical experiments, analyses, simulations, trade studies, and tests." ... "These services are not available elsewhere in a UARC or Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) environment in their entirety and, while not quantifiable, could not be duplicated without substantial investment of effort and other resources over a period of years."

No mention is made within this procurement notice of this Congressional direction as the real reason for this procurement, nor of the amount of funding involved. In addition, the tasks described in this procurement notice seem to be much more expansive than the simple two sentence description provided by Congress. Also, if this is simply meeting a congressional earmark, then why does NASA include all of the information needed for others to show their qualifications to do the job - so as to allow a decision to be made whether or not to compete this? If NASA intends to award this to JHU anyway, isn't this all just a charade?

"NASA is considering adopting policies and developing plans and procedures to expand access to and use of the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at John F. Kennedy Space Center by other government agencies and their contractors, university research and technology programs, and commercial users as outlined in this request."

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"Russia's space agency has signed a contract with Gregory Olsen, a spokesman said Wednesday, in a deal that would make the U.S. millionaire scientist only the third tourist to visit the international space station."

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